The Denver Post's Benjamin Hochman posts analysis, notes and more on this blog focussing on the Denver Nuggets.

A gym is a music box of basketball, a cube compacting a cacophony. Monday afternoon, though, after the palpable players and their squeaking sneakers exited, the only sound in the Nuggets' gym was the calm cadence of Danilo Gallinari, smoothly swishing shots.

Practice had been finished for 80 minutes, and he was the only player in there. See, in the last game, he missed a shot that would have forced overtime; so Monday, he worked overtime.

"I've got to work hard. I've got to work on my shot," said Gallo, his face lathered in sweat. "So hopefully (Tuesday), my shot will be a little better than it was the first two games."

Gallinari missed 3-pointer that would have tied Miami. Saturday night, he was a frightening 3-for-17 from the field. Yes, he's playing on a painful left ankle sprain. But he's playing. And missing. In the other game, the loss at Orlando, Gallinari shot 5-for-14.

In his postpractice workout, the 6-foot-10 forward did a specific shooting drill he learned in Italy. He would sprint away from the basket, dart back toward the hoop and then shoot a 3 from the top of the key.

"You have a goal in every exercise, and if you don't achieve that goal, you have to do the exercise again until you make it," he said. "All the times you don't make your goal, it's extra free throws. So once you're done with the exercises you have to do at least six free throws in a row and then you add two free throws to any of the exercises that you missed. It's a simple concept, but it's a long workout."

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Gallo's goal Tuesday is field goals. A bunch of them. Denver hosts Detroit in the Nuggets' home opener. Yes, they'll be wearing those new, snazzy golden uniforms. As for the Pistons, only three teams allow more points per game than the 101.7 their opponents' average.

The Nuggets are 0-3, and in the first two games, their offense was occasional. It was a positive sign, one could argue, that Denver splurged offensively in its third game, at Miami. Really, the only one who wasn't sharp was Gallinari, whose in-game shot didn't seem as smooth as Monday's workout.

Nuggets forward Danilo Gallinari, center, shown during a preseason game, shot just 3-for-17 from the field against the Miami Heat on Saturday night. (Sue Ogrocki, The Associated Press)

He has attempted an arguably absurd 18 3-pointers in the two games, making three (he missed the season opener because of the ankle). But he has tried to counter this by slicing to the basket at times, too, and more important, getting to the foul line. He was 11-for-14 against the Magic, 6-for-9 against the Heat. And so, right now he's getting 47.2 percent of his points from the foul line.

As for the Nuggets, naturally, they're not ready to panic. It's tough to beat any team on the road (as they've dutifully shown).

"I've been on teams where we started out really slow," guard Andre Iguodala said. "We made bursts around January. We'll start winning earlier than that. I've been on a few teams where we haven't got it going until after the all-star break. We're not panicking at all. Just continue to do the things we've been doing well and fix the things we've been doing wrong."

Nuggets coach George Karl is realistic. Remember, he said over and over that the early-season schedule would be brutal. Seventeen of Denver's first 23 games are on the road.

"I'm not going to address losing because the first (23) games of the season, we're probably not going to have this flamboyant record that's going to knock people out," Karl said. "We have to figure out how to win games. Gallo misses a game (at the 76ers) that we have a good chance of wining if he plays, and the last six quarters we've played, we've played very well.

"There's an energy in our building and has been since I've been there. I think everybody understands of our first 10 home games, we'd like to win nine or 10 of them just to sustain the road. The road's going to be difficult. ... We need some home cooking to get us of on a winning streak."

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